Jefferson County Commissioner’s sale for October

I have been working with a client for a couple of months that had spotted a property in Houston Acres that met her fancy. We had done a little homework and knew that it was slated for the Jefferson County Commissioner sale of October 30th. As I did my research, I could see that it was listed as a short sale a year ago and cancelled after 3 months. In the listing, the agent notes mentioned bringing a flashlight as the power was off. This tells me that it has also been vacant since that time.

We started off by contacting the owner and trying to work a short sale. I talked to the owner and I could tell that he was disgusted with the short sale process. It turns out that the sellers accepted an offer on their short sale home and sent it to the bank. Just before it was to be approved, the bank changed hands. The real estate agent and sellers were told that the short sale process would now have to start over. With this piece of information, the listing was cancelled.

As time grew nearer to the commissioner sale date, my client employed me to be their buyer’s agent in this transaction. I told them that I would work with them to successfully bring it to the closing table. I suggested that they contact the owner directly and see if they could get inside the house before the sale. I then ran some comps of the area and we discussed pricing strategy.

The day of the sale arrived and after a spirited bidding war with the foreclosing bank, my clients bought the house. Since then, we have been working with the loan officer, utilities, title companies and others. At this point, it appears that all is good for a close in 30 days.